Registration is now open for the Peer to Peer: UK/HK Online Festival, an online platform for cultural exchange between the UK and Hong Kong’s visual arts sectors, interrogating topical themes including art and activism, art in the digital realm and the climate emergency.
The international festival has announced its programme of public events and panel talks, alongside an online exhibition of digital artwork including new commissions from artists based in the UK and Hong Kong.
a-n The Artists Information Company is pleased to be a UK partner and media partner for the festival, which takes place online from 11-14 November.
Festival Curator Ying Kwok comments: “The themes that will be explored in the festival have grown from mutual interests from partners in Hong and the UK as we respond to timely global events and issues. It reflects how we have co-curated the festival with all partners in an experimental approach for international collaboration. We see this festival as a springboard for meaningful exchange between Hong Kong and the UK in the future.”
Wing-Sie Chan, a-n’s Programmes and Partnerships Manager, will chair a panel event, ‘Local/international artist exchange in time of global pandemic’, on 11 November at 12pm UK time. The panel includes Angel Leung (Videotage, Hong Kong), Dorcas Leung (HART, Hong Kong), Lee Wing Ki (Artist representing 1a space, Hong Kong), and Jamie Wyld (Videoclub, UK), who will discuss the importance of artist-led exchange as a radical and necessary response to a changing international world.
Other panel events include ‘Isn’t all art activism?’, chaired by a-n Board member Skinder Hundal, who is CEO of New Art Exchange, which will consider the philosophy and principle of activism in art. Panel members include: Chantal Wong (Eaton HK, Hong Kong), Yang Yeung (1983, Hong Kong), Helen Wewiora (Castlefield Gallery, UK),
Artist Antonio Roberts, who participates in the festival with a newly commission work, and is a member of a-n’s Artists Council, takes part in the event ‘Making (it) work online’. Other panel members include: Jacob Bolton (Peer to Peer: UK/Hong Kong), Peter Bonnell (QUAD Derby, UK), Antonio Roberts (Artist, UK), Wu Jiaru (Artist, Hong Kong). Chaired by Hong Kong-based academic and curator Vennes Cheng, the talk will consider creating and curating online art as an artistic practice rather than a solution.
Accompanying the public events will be an online exhibition of digital artworks from artists based in the UK and Hong Kong, featuring five brand new commissions, two of which are by Roberts and Hetain Patel, who is also a member of a-n’s Artists Council. The remaining commissions are by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Sharon Lee and Lee Kai Chung. The commissions will be accompanied by over 15 existing digital artworks from nominated artists, to be announced.
As part of the exchange between UK and Hong Kong, artists based in each country have also been nominated for a series of online residencies hosted on the social media accounts of partner organisations. The residency exchange began last weekend with Hong Kong International Photo Festival nominating Raul Hernandez, a Spanish born artist living in Hong Kong, who takes over Open Eye Gallery’s Instagram for four consecutive weekends as part of his Room Available project exploring being a foreigner in a new environment.
Hong Kong’s HART Collective have also nominated Hong Kong artist Wu Jiaru, who will be taking over UK gallery Furtherfield’s Instagram from 19-29 October, as an extension of their work currently displayed in HART’s exhibition ‘Household Gods’.
Further residencies will be announced on the Peer to Peer: UK/HK Residencies page.
Peer to Peer: UK/HK takes places at peertopeerexchange.org, 11-14 November 2020. Explore the full programme and register here.
Images:
1. Hetain Patel, Spectrum 2 (video still), 2020
2. Sharon Lee Cheuk Wun, Same River Twice, 2020, Gelatin-silver prints, 6-channel videoed on google map
3. Antonio Roberts, untitled, 2019, video (screenshot from sonituslive)
4. Raul Hernandez, Room Available, 2017, film
5. Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, I cant remember a time i didn’t need you(moment), 2020, Interactive Game (still)
